Such arrangements are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,997,182. One of the arrangements provides a seat of the sensor in the outer bearing ring. The sensor is mounted here in a radial through-hole in the outer bearing ring and engages between the rows of roller bodies. A disadvantage with such a solution is in particular the fact that when the sensor mounted in the bearing ring is removed, foreign bodies can get into the interior of the wheel bearing unit via the through-hole. These foreign bodies may, under certain circumstances, penetrate between the roller bodies and the raceways of the bearing and shorten the service life of the bearing. Furthermore, the wheel bearing unit takes up a relatively large amount of axial installation space since there must be axial free space for the sensor between the rows.
In a further arrangement for nondriven vehicle wheels according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,997,182, the sensor is seated in a housing and is aligned axially with the encoder. The housing is complex to mount with a plurality of individual parts on a flange drilled hole of the outer bearing ring and requires a relatively large amount of axial and radial installation space, which is not always available. Such an arrangement of the sensor is not suitable, or is suitable for use only to a certain degree, on wheel bearing units for driven vehicle wheels since there is not sufficient installation space available.